My fb friends might remember this picture from a post I made in January of this year. I was inspired to make a personalized gift for Travis’ god-daughter Tilda, whom we were gearing up to visit in Nicaragua. She was around 19 months old then, and a perfect candidate for a plushie.
When we finally met Tilda, she was naturally shy in interacting with two people who were perfect strangers, and her hesitation extended to this stuffed bear that was a third of her height and looked nothing like her baby doll toy.
While we bonded with Tilda during our 2 week visit, she maintained her distance from the teddy…but then! a few weeks upon our return to Phoenix, her dad sent an email update that “Tilda adopted the teddy bear…as her new best friend now. She’s always playing with it before going to bed at noon and at night, putting it in upright position, then in sitting position, then back in upright position, etc. Really cute!”
That made me feel all 
I remember finding the free pattern through a Google search, which sent me to Sonea Delvon’s page on Ravelry.com. The pattern opens as a downloadable PDF file. I followed along with the open file on my iPad mini, rather than printing it out, which was easy enough. Since I was new to crocheting and especially new to amigurumi, I followed the pattern closely. I did make a second pass around in attaching the head to the neck, for extra security from tugging toddler fingers. I chose red since Tilda is Swiss, and affixed a “T” to the right foot for added personalization. Per Tilda’s dad, the bear’s nickname is now “Redhead.”
**amigrumi is the Japanese art of making super cute stuffed things from crocheting (or knitting).
annaweee.com 